


Unless It's You

by OutOfWords



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, F/M, Short One Shot, Soulmates, but not in the way you'd expect it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26971411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OutOfWords/pseuds/OutOfWords
Summary: When Rachel's fourteen she meets her soulmate. It's in the hallway during the second day of school when the burning sensation on her wrist appears and gets stronger with every step she takes.
Relationships: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Comments: 14
Kudos: 41





	Unless It's You

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to apologize in advance, because it's not good at all.

When Rachel's fourteen she meets her soulmate. It's in the hallway during the second day of school when the burning sensation on her wrist appears and gets stronger with every step she takes. She tries to hide the wince, but the moment she sees the captain of the football team rub his own she gives up on pretending. As their eyes meet, Rachel feels every bit of her existence vibrate, her heart stutter and she doesn't feel the pain anymore. 

Instead, there's a small mark in the shape of a helmet with stars that seeped into her being.

They don't date instantly, deciding on being friends first, to got to know each other. After all, they are fourteen, they have their whole life ahead of themselves.

They kiss for the first time during a spin-the-bottle game, and while it's not as romantic as Rachel imagined, it's just as magical.

When she's seventeen they finally go out on a date. It's awkward even though he was attentive and sweet, but Rachel's heart soars when she sees him on her porch. Their date is clumsy and imperfect, but they learn to grow together, until they work like a well-oiled machine, on their way into the unknown.

When she's twenty-one the mark burns again, and with it comes the blinding pain of losing her other half. Her mark goes white, scarring, as her heart shatters into a million little pieces one by one. She damns every minute they haven't spent together, thinks about those three years they've wasted, and she cries into the shoulders of her fathers for what felt like years.

Slowly, she lets go of the anger, and instead of cursing the wasted years, she cherishes the ones they've spent together. It's hard, and takes some time, but she slowly learns how to do it.

She's twenty-four. She's not where she thought she'd be, but she has a small part as an ensemble member in an off-Broadway musical and it's more than enough at the moment. She works in a diner part-time, and that's where she meets the enigma known as Quinn Fabray. She never stays for long, only orders a coffee that she leaves half-empty every single time, reads yesterday's newspaper, wears mismatched socks, speaks in rhymes, and doesn't believe in soulmates.

It's oddly refreshing to talk to her, and Rachel thinks for the first time in years that she may be able to open her heart up.

When she's twenty-four and a half she goes out on her first date since she lost her soulmate. Quinn is as much of a gentlewoman as she is odd and Rachel's thoroughly charmed after only one date. They fell into a routine pretty easily, much easier than the one she fell into with him and the guilt she's feeling is enormous.

She takes the first flight back to Lima, goes out to his grave and cries, apologizing, asking only god knows what. Maybe a sign that he's alright with her moving on.

When she leaves the cemetery there's no answer, but she feels lighter, like the guilt that was building for years lifted.

By the time she's twenty-five she's sure her heart is on the way to be in one piece again, and it terrifies her in all the right ways.

By the time she's twenty-six, she moved into Quinn's apartment, bit by bit. It started with her toothbrush then her clothes, and after a night of passion and tenderness, Quinn asks her to never leave.

Twenty-eight sees her getting her big break out role and she got her first Tony nomination. She doesn't win an award that night, but Quinn gets down on her knees in their apartment by the couch and gives the sappiest speech Rachel has ever heard. Her heart doesn't feel heavy at all as she says yes, but she feels a little something; an uncertainty that looms over her head.

Thirty should've been her wedding, but one day before she's supposed to walk down the aisle to the woman she's loved for over five years now her father, Hiram, quietly collapsed. Instead of walking _her_ down the aisle, Leroy walks up and down the hallways, uncertain and confused, while Quinn just quietly holds her on the uncomfortable hospital bench.

They postpone the wedding indefinitely because Rachel's sure it's the universe's way of saying that they aren't ready yet and while Quinn doesn't believe in the universe as a higher up she understands why Rachel would have doubts.

When she's thirty-one Quinn feels the burn of the mark while they're out running an errand. It's slowly shaping, slightly glowing as it searches for something.

It's a heart, broken and tattered, mended together by tapes and stitches, looking as fragile as Rachel's in that moment.

She checks her own wrist, hoping for a miracle, for anything, but there's only the never-changing scar she got when she was fourteen and twenty-one.

She feels her own heart break again as Quinn softly untangles their hand from and steps into the direction of her soulmate.


End file.
